A Time to Die (12 page)

“Will you come back to Christy’s with me?” he asked. “We can light a fire in the fireplace and spread blankets on the floor. We’ll have a picnic.”

“Sounds perfect to me.”

If he’d offered her a flight to the moon, she’d have gone. It didn’t matter where they were together, just as long as she could be with him.

At Christy’s apartment, he carted logs to the
fireplace and lit them. She heard the wind whistle by the windows and shivered. She stretched out on the floor, propping herself up with pillows to make breathing easier. “Sure you don’t want some?” Eric asked, offering her a bite of the sandwich he’d created for himself. It was tall as a tower. “Turkey’s much better the next day, you know.”

“I know,” she said, “but no, thanks.”

“You haven’t eaten all day.”

“I don’t eat much.”

“We’ve got some marshmallows to roast later.”

“I’ll have some of those.” She figured she could manage a few gooey marshmallows. She stared into the fire and watched the pale yellow flames dance. “I have to go back to the hospital on Monday,” she said.

“Christy told me.” He stretched out on his side next to her, his head resting on one propped up arm. “I think it’s lousy. Don’t you ever get angry about having CF?”

“Sure I do. But it doesn’t change it. Besides, it’s a part of me.” She turned her face toward his and touched the hair on his forehead, flecked with firelight. “It’s like being born with brown hair. Or blue eyes. Having CF isn’t something a person has a choice about.”

“I know it’s not your fault you’re sick,” he insisted.

“It’s just something that
happens
to a person. I mean, I could have been born to other parents. But then I wouldn’t be me, would I?”

“But it’s not fair.”

She smiled knowingly, remembering all the times she’d used that same phrase in frustration. “You’re right, it isn’t fair. I didn’t even
know
I was sick until I was at least six years old.”

“How could you not know?”

She turned her gaze on the fire. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve had someone pounding on my back and chest two to three times a day. I’ve had to cough in order to breathe and take pills before meals. For a long time, I didn’t question it. I didn’t know that every other little kid in the world didn’t do the same things every day. I thought all kids were exactly like me.”

“But they aren’t.” He toyed with a lock of her hair.

“I began to notice,” she said.
“I
was the one who was different. And I hated it. Even though I was small at the time, and I didn’t understand it fully, I got real angry about it. I would hide when it came time for my therapy. I’d kick and scream at my parents and call them mean names. Sometimes I made my mother cry.”

Eric smoothed the lock of hair behind her ear. “Funny, you don’t look like a meany to me.”

She shook her head and looked up into his face. “I was awful. I hated everybody, and yet I was dependent on them, too. Without the thumps, I couldn’t breathe. A person gets addicted to breathing, you know.”

“Thump or die, huh?” He chuckled.

“Exactly. Except that some days the thumps aren’t enough. I was in and out of the hospital six times when I was twelve. No matter what I did, my lungs kept betraying me. About that same time, I decided I must be a most terrible person and that I was being punished. I believed that God hated me.”

“I’d probably think the same thing.”

“I met Vince during that phase. He had CF like me, and so we used to talk about God and having CF and feeling cursed.” She looked at Eric, her expression shy. “We made some earth-shattering discoveries about life.”

“I’d like to hear them,” Eric said.

“We decided that everybody suffers one way or another at some point in their lives. Nobody gets away scot-free. Suffering is just something people have to do—a kind of dues paying for the privilege of living and being happy. And sometimes it seems to me until you know the one—suffering—you can’t know the other—happiness. It’s like they play off each other. Do you know what I mean?”

“I understand, but I don’t know why you have to suffer so much and someone else—someone who’s a jerk or a creep—like a murderer—doesn’t seem to suffer much at all.”

“There you go again,” Kara chided, while toying with the edge of the blanket. “You’re asking that life be ‘fair.’ Nobody knows how much anybody else hurts. We can’t walk around in another person’s
skin—not even for a moment. Sometimes, people reach out, and that’s really special. But we just have to look for happiness in each day, no matter what’s happening to us.”

“Are you happy now?”

She watched the firelight reflect in his eyes. Inside, she felt a melting sensation, as if she might dissolve and soak into the floor. She raised one trembling finger and traced the outline of his mouth. “Yes. I’m happy now.”

He caught her hand and held it. “Kara, I’ve never known anybody like you.”

“You mean a terribly skinny girl with scratchy breathing?”

He lowered his ear to her chest, resting his head ever so gently. “It sounds to me like a kitten purring.”

Kara touched his hair, and he raised his head and stared into her eyes. Eric lowered his mouth to hers, hesitantly at first, barely brushing her lips. He cradled her head on his arm and stroked her hair with his free hand. She felt warm and protected, totally lost in his embrace. He drew back and stared down at her, his gaze serious. “Kara, I don’t want to—”

She silenced him by kissing him fully. Not once in all her life had she experienced the sensations pouring through her now in Eric’s arms, and she didn’t want them to end. “Hold me,” she whispered. “Please hold me.”

His arms slipped around her. She clung to him
fiercely while her breath came raggedly. She was so filled with wanting and yearning that she ached. She heard the crackling fire, the howling wind. Time seemed to stand still. She raised her head and offered her lips for Eric’s lingering kiss.

“J
UST HOW SICK
is Kara?” Eric practically accosted Vince in the locker room. “She seemed fine over the holiday, but when I went to see her at the hospital last night, she was getting tests and I couldn’t go in. The nurse told me she was really sick again. What’s going on?”

“It’s another infection.” Vince tossed his books into his locker and stripped off his jacket. “Have you talked to your sister?”

“I haven’t seen her. She left for work early.”

“Kara told me you spent Friday with her.” Vince’s statement sounded matter-of-fact, but Eric sensed resentment.

“We just hung around. Christy worked all holiday. I wanted Kara to have a good time.”

“She’s not some charity case. You aren’t responsible for her good times.”

“Hey, back off,” Eric warned.

For a moment, he and Vince glared at each other. “Sorry, man. I was out of line,” Vince said. “She’s important to me, and right now, I’m worried about her. It’s hard when you really care about someone.”

Eric sighed, regretting his show of temper. He knew the way Vince cared about Kara, and knowing she’d been with Eric had to have been hard on him. He told himself he should never have gotten involved with Kara or Vince. He should have simply ignored them and stuck with his usual good-time crowd. Yet, he hadn’t, and deep down, he knew there was no going back. What was worse, he didn’t want to go back. Kara mattered to him. “Come on,” he said to Vince. “Let’s do some bench presses. I’ll spot you.”

Vince gave Eric a sad, imploring look. “I want her to have a good time, too. I don’t want her to keep going through the ringer this way.”

“Between us, we can give her a good time. Lighten up. She’ll be out of there before long. She’s licked it before, and she’ll do it again.” Yet, even as he spoke, Eric saw doubt in Vince’s eyes. And fear.

    Kara felt frightened. It was getting harder and harder to breathe, no matter what the doctors did. Her heart was racing, and although the cardiologist examined her and ordered medication, he
didn’t have any medical wonders to stop the downward turn her condition was taking. She felt lethargic, groggy, despite being on oxygen almost all the time. Dr. McGee took her into surgery and inserted a catheter in her arm for hyper-alimentation—a procedure to get nourishment into her starving body more efficiently. The hospital routine around her faded in and out, and the only way she measured time was by the rattling of the food trays three times a day, the faces of the nurses as they changed shifts, and her parents’ visits.

This time, Kara insisted on having visitors. She wanted to see her friends for as long as she could. She wanted to be surrounded with healthy people. Christy popped in every chance she got. As Kara worstened, her mother spent most nights in the room with her. She told Kara she’d taken a short leave of absence from her job. “You shouldn’t have,” Kara insisted.

Her mother’s expression was obstinate. “I’d much rather be here with you. Honestly, Kara, this nine-to-five workday is totally overrated!”

“I’m
more exciting than a high-powered position in an international ad agency?”

“No doubt about it.” Her mother touched her cheek gently.

Kara smiled wryly. “That’s hard to believe, but I’m glad you’re here with me, Mom.” Kara looked at her mother, at the worried set of her mouth, the tiny lines around her eyes. Kara just knew
time was running out. She thought about the One Last Wish letter she’d received.

The letter was at home, tucked safely away in her dresser drawer. She’d read it so many times, she’d memorized it. “The miracle is not in the receiving, but in the giving and in friendships that reach beyond death.”

Kara smiled to herself. She finally had the solution of what to do with the money. The answer was so simple. Kara took hold of her mother’s hand. “Come closer, Mom.” She patted the edge of her bed. “Sit down. There’s something I need to tell you—and something I want you to do.”

    Vince came every day after school, sat by her bed and read to her, passages from the Bible, poetry, magazine articles, novels. If he came to an especially sexy passage, he’d stop and joke, “Now, turn your thumb down if you think your modesty can’t take this.”

She’d smile and hoarsely whisper, “In your dreams.” Who could have a shred of modesty left after being poked and probed and examined by every person who passed through her room wearing a white lab coat?

When Eric visited, he appeared ill at ease, so Kara made an extra effort to be cheerful. Nothing she did recaptured the magic they’d shared during the Thanksgiving holiday. She longed to have him look at her the way he had that night when he’d held her and kissed her.

She understood his ambivalent reactions.
“Civilians”—people who’d never been unhealthy—were put off by her world. Hospitals weren’t places for people who didn’t
have
to be there. “It’s nice to have you come and see me,” she told him. “You’ve been wonderful to me.”

“Maybe I’ll bring my English teacher by, and you can give me a testimonial.”

She attempted a laugh, but the effort hurt. “It’ll cost you. I don’t just toss out testimonials for nothing, you know.”

He leaned over her bed and looked her full in the face. “So, what will it cost me?”

She felt the familiar sensations go through her that only he could elicit. “I’ll have to think about it.”

He stared at her, the look of mischievousness giving way to one of tenderness and sadness. She felt uncomfortable. She didn’t want him looking at her that way. Not with pity. She broke his gaze by glancing away. “I guess I should let you get some rest,” he said.

No
, her mind cried.
I don’t want to rest. I want you
. But she told him, “Of course. I am a little tired.” She watched him start for the door. “Will you come back?” she asked, suddenly anxious about seeing him again.

“Of course,” he said, giving her a puzzled look. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“No reason,” she said, believing there was every reason for him to stay away. He left and Kara felt an urge to cry.

*  *  *

“Santa’s elves have come bearing gifts,” Vince declared when he and Eric arrived the next day wearing Santa hats and carrying boxes and paper bags.

“What’s going on?” Kara asked. She was sitting upright. Now, she slept with the head of the bed permanently elevated and her head and shoulders propped with pillows in an effort to make breathing easier.

Eric opened one especially long box and began taking out parts of an artificial tree. “Vince said you had to have one of these fake ones in your room.” She nodded. A natural tree might make her wheeze.

It took them almost an hour to set up the tree, as they argued and kidded one another over the directions.

“What do you think of these?” Eric asked, dangling a long string of twinkle lights. “I’ve got them in all colors and in white. Which ones do you want?”

“All of them,” she said. “A tree can’t have enough lights.” Elyse showed up with a bag of silver and gold tinsel, popcorn and cranberry chains, and hundreds of small, red decorative bows. “Are you in on this, too?” Kara asked, smiling.

“You didn’t think I was going to let these two comedians handle this by themselves?” She held up the popcorn chain. “And do you have any idea how long I worked on this thing? This is an act of
love, girl. I have bloody fingertips from my sewing needle to prove it.”